Unfortunately, most players end up more confused than they
started the guys and gals messing with different tunings often
find themselves down a musical dead end street, mostly because
they don’t know what they are playing; even if they do find
something they do like they don’t know what to call it, so their
new ’sound’ becomes “that thing”.

Guitarists going the equipment route are ultimately faced with
the problem of no matter how much stuff you put on a lame chord
progression you STILL end up with a lame chord progression with
interesting effects. It all comes down to the content of your
music, is it interesting or is it the same old boring stuff
recycled over again?

But what if they was an easy way to create new, interesting and
exciting chords and chord progressions for your next jam session;
the great news is there are many ways to develop easy chord
shapes and chord progressions that will blow everyone away, here
is just one of those ways.

Thinking outside the musical box:

Step 1: Take a familiar scale in a popular key.

I’m going to go with the minor pentatonic scale in the key of
‘G’; just about everyone knows how to play the minor pentatonic
scale even if they do not know the name of it and when it comes
to keys the two most popular keys at jam sessions would have to
be the keys of ‘E’ and ‘G’.

Step 2: Create chords from the names of the notes in the minor
pentatonic scale.

The ‘G’ minor pentatonic scale consists of the following notes.

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – C – D – F

Step 3: Select a chord shape

I’m going with a standard ‘G’ chord shape in the open position

G

-3–
-3–
-0–
-0–
-2–
-3–

Since I will be moving this chord shape around the guitar
fingerboard I’m going to slightly modify the chord configuration.

Here is the same chord without the 3rd; essentially I have
created a really cool sounding ‘G’ chord using only two of the
possible three notes that make up the ‘G’ chord e.g., a ‘G’ chord
is spelt G – B – D in this particular shape I’m leaving out the
‘B’ note.

G (no 3rd)

-3–
-3–
-0–
-0–
-X–
-3–

Step 4: Move this shape around the fingerboard using the notes
from the G minor pentatonic scale as bass notes.

G minor pentatonic = [G] – Bb – C – D – F

G (no 3rd)

-3–
-3–
-0–
-0–
-X–
-3–

G minor pentatonic = G – [Bb] – C – D – F

Bb (no 3rd)

-6–
-6–
-0–
-0–
-X–
-6–

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – [C] – D – F

C (no 3rd)

-8–
-8–
-0–
-0–
-x–
-8–

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – C – [D] – F

D (no 3rd)

-10–
-10–
-0–
-0–
-x–
-10–

G minor pentatonic = G – Bb – C – D – [F]

F (no 3rd)

-1–
-1–
-0–
-0–
-x–
-1–

For those guitarists with cutaway model guitars here is another
version of the ‘F’ chord

F (no 3rd)

-13–
-13–
-0—
-0—
-x—
-13–

See how easy it is to find new sounds?

* the lead guitarist can play the “G’ minor pentatonic scale over
these chords

* you can play the chords in any order

Here is one example

G /// | Bb /// | G /// | C D G / |

* since none of these shapes (apart from the original G chord)
are in chord books you will definitely have created your own
sound.

Since pre-historic times ever since the first men and women began
creating music human beings have always be trying to push the
harmonic boundaries; in fact the one constant reoccurring pattern
that can be found in the entire history of music is the human
intellect’s constant search for more complex harmonies.

Harmonies that sounded dissonant or odd fifty or twenty years ago
go totally unnoticed today, as the public hear these sounds more
often we accept them as part of the overall musical soundscape.

In the sixties musicians everywhere felt the need to break with
traditional harmonic progressions all field of music were
effected by the ‘new’ sounds.

Musicians such as Burt Bacharach working in the popular music
scene and Antonio Carlos Jobim composing Brazilian music were
just some of the new breed of writers continuing the quest for
new and interesting harmonic progressions that reflected the
social climate of the day.

Around 1957 the guitar grew in unprecedented popularity; of
course the guitar (both electric and acoustic versions) had been
a popular musical instrument for many years however, it was the
Beatles and early rock and roll that created the worldwide
explosion of popularity for the guitar; the guitar’s contribution
was a reemergence of folk music as well as the newfound
popularity of the minor pentatonic scale.

Chord progressions derived from the pentatonic scale were one of
the most significant musical breakthrough’s of 1960’s as
musicians searching for a way of breaking with traditional
harmony found the pentatonic progressions produced chords with
a new sense of harmonic freedom and that the pentatonic
progressions could also be integrated with traditional chords.

Pentatonic Chord Progressions overview:

Interesting and fresh sounding chord progression can be created
by using the notes of the minor pentatonic scale as root notes
for chords.

If we use the notes of an “E” minor pentatonic scale for our
example we would have the following notes.

E minor pentatonic: E – G – A – B – D – E

Using these notes as root notes we can create chord progressions
like these …

Ex 1.

Em /// | D /// | A /// | A /// |

Ex 2.

Em /// | D /// | Am /// | Am /// |

Ex 3.

E /// | D /// | A /// | A /// |

Notice how in these examples we can use major or minor chord
textures; the important point to remember is that we are using
notes from the minor pentatonic scale to function as root notes;
the type of chordal texture we use with this root note will
depend on the musical effect we are wanting to achieve.

Some more examples …

Ex 4.

E / G / | A / E / |E / G / | A / E / |

Ex 5.

E / G / | A / B / |E / G / | A / B / |

Ex 6.

E / D / | A / B / |E / D / | A / B / |

How do these chords compare with traditional harmonization of a
major scale?

Compare our ‘new’ pentatonic chord progressions with the triadic
version of the ‘E’ major scale.

E – F#m – G#m – A – B – C#m – D#dim – E

As you can see certain chords are found in both the pentatonic
and triadic progressions e.g., ‘E’; ‘A’ & ‘B’.

Which scale would we use to solo over the pentatonic chord
progressions?

The minor pentatonic scale will work well over all
the progressions regardless of whether the chords played in the
progression are major or minor; there’s something really
intriguing about minor scales being played over major chords, in
theory it should not work but in practice it produces a neat
blues effect.

Actually, as funny as all that sounds I know quite a few
guitarists who put more time and effort into stuff like that than
actually working on their craft and playing authentic blues is
most definitely a craft.

Before we move on let’s sum up what we know about how NOT to play
the blues on guitar:

(a) 25% of guitarists think all they need is a cool blues guitar
and/or a really hip name

(b) 70% are busy playing the blues scale flat out all over the
fretboard as fast as possible

That leaves us with only 5% who actually DO know how to speak the
blues language on guitar.

Let’s see how this 5% approach blues solos on guitar.

Blues fact 1: It’s not what you play it’s how you play it!

Blues fact 2: It’s not what you play in a solo it’s what you
leave out!

Blues fact 3: It’s about playing from the heart not from the
intellect (right brain stuff, too much left thinking and your
playing will sound cold!)

The most important aspect of playing the blues is the rhythm,
remember music is ‘pitch in time’; therefore it’s the space(s) in
between each note or phrase is what creates interesting, powerful
music that communicates.

It’s this very human element we want to incorporate into our
blues guitar playing so let’s begin …

Blues solo step 1: Tap your foot work and concentrate on
developing a comfortable tempo or groove.

Blues solo step 2: Choose a key for your blues – I’m going to
play in the key of ‘E’ a popular blues key for guitarists.

Blues solo step 3: Select ONE note from the blues scale
pertaining to the key you have chosen.

I choose the key of ‘E’ therefore I’ll need to select a note from
the E Blues scale

E blues scale: E – G – A – Bb – B – D – E

I’m going with the note ‘E’, the note ‘B’ is also a good note for
this type of one note solo exercise; all the notes in the scale
will work, however the ‘Bb’ is not the best choice for a newbie
player.

Blues solo step 4: Create a rhythmic pattern or motif from a
thematic ’speech’ phrase – this sounds technical but what it
really means is: think of a short phrase based on a theme and use
the rhythm of the words in the phrase as the basis for your blues
solo.

My theme will be ‘animals’ and my phrase is “cat, rab-bit, cat
rab-bit”

Blues solo step 5: Select a harmonic background for your blues;
I’m going to use this typical 12 bar blues chord progression.

E /// |E /// | E /// | E /// |
A /// |A /// | E /// | E /// |
B /// |B /// | E /// | E /// |

Now that we have all the musical elements let’s create our solo:

(a) Tap your foot and sing your phrase as you tap your foot.

Count in: 1234 [1]

(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1
(cat rab-bit, cat rab-bit) 4 1

My solo worked out like this: count in of 1234 ; then the 12 bar
blues chord progression would begin on beat 1, indicated as [1];
I then played my one note ‘E’s’ as follows …

“cat”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

“rab-”
——–
–5—-
——–
——–
——–
——–

“-bit”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

“cat”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

“rab-”
——–
–5—-
——–
——–
——–
——–

“-bit”
–0—-
——–
——–
——–
——–
——–

Notice how I didn’t just play the same ‘E’ every time, even
though I restricted myself to one note I could create variety and
surprise by playing the exact same note on different strings.

It’s fun to do this as you can play the note ‘E’ all over the
guitar in different octaves using various guitar techniques such
as slide, hammer-on’s, vibrato, bends etc.

Most importantly you have an original blues solo that really
grooves, I do hope you have fun making up your very own smokin’
blues solos using some of these wacky ideas, the great news is
they really work!

What usually happens is the guitar player takes up the instrument
full of enthusiasm and attacks the process of learning to play
like a “bull at a gate” without actually taking the time to
really understand the process of learning a musical instrument.

Oddly enough if the guitarist spent five minutes thinking things
through they could easily save themselves five hours of haphazard
practice.

Here’s the top three mistakes I see guitar players repeatedly
make trying to learn the guitar; learn to identify and rectify
these errors in own your practice sessions and you will join the
small number of successful guitar players (the elite 1%),
overlook or fail to rectify these learning hazards and you can
forget it … take up golf or swimming you ain’t going to make it
as a guitarist!

Top three mistakes

Mistake 1. practicing too fast – this has to be the number one
mistake! Remember speed comes as a by-product of accuracy; there
is no award for fast and sloppy players.

Solution: Use a metronome when you practice, never play faster
that perfect synchronization of both hands will allow.

Mistake 2. allowing overtones to ring on – overtones are little
faint ghost notes that play by themselves, they are caused by
open strings vibrating in sympathy with certain notes that are
being fretted in a piece of music. These unwanted notes
(overtones) make your music sound, sloppy, out-of-tune and messy.

Solution: make sure you are dampening all other strings that you
are not playing, sometimes you have to use both hands to mute
all the unwanted overtones. Record yourself often and pay
particular attention to the overtones, you should only hear the
notes you intended to play. This technique of dampening all the
strings is also essential for playing particular types of music
e.g., funk and R & B.

Mistake 3. guitarists who don’t know what they are playing – very
common mistake amongst guitarists who learn exclusively via TAB;
there’s no getting around this one, if you doing know what you
are doing why bother doing it in the first place?

Solution: Learn the names of the notes on the guitar fretboard.

There can be no forward movement in your guitar playing career if
you don’t address these problems you will spend the rest of your
guitar playing days like a man running very fast in one spot …
there will be a lot of activity but you won’t be going nowhere!

There are some other common musical banana-peel issues that pop
up amongst guitarist but these three need to be addressed first
so now you know what to do it’s totally up to you to decide if
you want to do anything about it; if you make a conscious effort
to overcome these next problem will be well on your way to a
successful playing career on guitar.

Of course you could plug yourself into a computer and become a
guitar hero (pun intended) but that wouldn’t be half as much fun
as actually playing a real guitar would it? … of course not!

The problem is how you quickly learn easy guitar songs that will
give your friends the impression you are a legend and keep them
off your back while you go about the long and demanding task of
learning to play a musical instrument.

This scenario might sound funny however it’s all too real for
those of us who have decided to learn the guitar; I clearly
remember my cousin coming to visit us, he was four years older
than me and had been playing for about six months; I, on the
other hand had been learning the guitar, studying hard and taking
private lessons for two years at that stage.

My cousin was keen to hear me play, I was quite shy about playing
for anyone but somehow my mum convinced me to play for our
visitors, I proceeded to slowly and painfully mangle an
unrecognizable rendition of Yankee Doodle that even the composer
would not have recognized.

Unperturbed, I moved on to my next piece an even worse rendition
of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star … that was it; my audience
could not contain themselves any longer, my cousin had tears
streaming down his cheeks and was obviously in pain from trying
to withhold the laughter …. I might have noticed this earlier
if I had looked up in between musical items!

That was pretty much the end of the concert much to everyone’s
relief especially mine! I vowed to never play for anyone again;
something I obviously overcome latter in life; but this incident
almost destroyed me, what made matters worse is that I
accidentally overheard my cousin playing his guitar when we
visited our relations a few months latter, his playing totally
floored me he was playing AC/DC, Rolling Stones and Creedence
Songs effortlessly.

I could not for the life of me understand how he could do it, to
make matters even worst (as if they could possibly get any
worse!) I knew he wasn’t taking any guitar lessons, he had
learned to play these songs ‘by ear!’

Long story short, over time I discovered the truth …

My cousin was not particularly musically talented or gifted he
had simply learned how to play some easy (but great sounding)
guitar riffs, he couldn’t play the whole songs just the most
recognizable part of the song; I didn’t know this, our family
didn’t know this and I suspect he had just about everyone fooled
into thinking he was a ‘gifted’ player, he certainly had me
fooled.

So here’s is my short list of easy guitar riffs so you can
impress everyone while you take your time learning all the other
stuff.

Riff 1. Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple

Riff 2. Sweet Child Of Mine – Guns N’ Roses

Riff 3. Sunshine Of Your Love – Eric Clapton

Riff 4. James Bond Theme

Riff 5. Black Night – Black Sabbath

Riff 6. Enter Sandman – Metallica

Riff 7. Peter Gunn Theme

A quick search on the internet on the most popular TAB sites and
you will find all of these songs … the problem is finding a
accurate version documented in the same key as the recorded
version; this is important because you don’t want to spend any
time learning a song in the wrong key and training your fingers
to play mistakes that will be very difficult to re-learn latter
in your guitar playing career.

To help you identify the correct versions here is the first few
notes of each riff.

Riff 1. Smoke On The Water – Deep Purple

———–
———–
–0–3–5–
–0–3–5–
———–
———–

Riff 2. Sweet Child Of Mine – Guns N’ Roses

—————
—-14———
——-13–11–
11————-
—————
—————

Riff 3. Sunshine Of Your Love – Eric Clapton

———–
———–
———–
-7–7–5—
-5–5–3—
———–

Riff 4. James Bond Theme

————-
————-
————-
————-
—-2—–3–
-0—–0—–

Riff 5. Black Night – Black Sabbath

—————–
—————–
—————–
—–5———–
-7——-7—5—
—————–

Riff 6. Enter Sandman – Metallica

———–
———–
———–
——5—-
—7——-
-0——6–

Riff 7. Peter Gunn Theme

—————
—————
—————
—————
—————
-0–0–2–0—-

Almost every guitarist plays songs like ‘Some On The Water’ the
only problem is 95% of them play it wrong … if you do a search
and the TAB does not begin with these notes, move on it’s far too
difficult a task to re-learn things on the guitar.

Sound familiar? Sound too good to be true?

The story: The internet is a good place for stories … there are
literally hundreds if not thousands of guitar ‘experts’ who are
trying to lure unsuspecting newbie (and not so-newbie) guitarists
to buy their ‘instant fix-it-all-in-five-minutes’ guitar course,
software or guitar system, some are very convincing with
impressive sales pages and flashy videos … but do they really
work?

To find the answer we need to step back from the computer for a
moment and take a realistic look at what is really happening
using good old fashioned (but quite rare) common sense.

What we can learn: We live in a ‘microwave mentality’, instant
gratification, quick fix society … that’s a fact we want
everything and we want it now!

Our so-called experts target would-be guitarists with this
‘instant results’ type marketing; any experienced guitarist
knows that you can’t learn the guitar in five minutes any more
than you can learn how to play the piano in five minutes or learn
how to fly an airplane or become a doctor in five minutes.

What do we get for our ‘instant guitar’ program? Lots’ of goodies
or worthless junk? Pandering to the popular idea that more is
better they will no doubt give you piles of stuff … here’s what
you can expect.

* heaps of videos

* lots of licks

* piles of guitar TAB

and the list goes on …

A closer look by the discerning guitarist reveals …

* heaps of videos – chock full of lightning fast, very impressive
show-off style guitar playing which confirms the fact that your
‘instructor’ can play faster and louder than you; unfortunately
that’s the way it’s going to stay because your ‘video star/
guitar expert’ isn’t in the slightest bit interested in helping
you play better, he or she just wants you to watch in amazement
at their Olympic style guitar achievements.

* lots of licks – heaps of ‘chicken-pickin’ fun here; again
played as fast as possible for maximum entertainment value
(unfortunately very little educational value).

* piles and piles of guitar TAB – most of which you could pick up
for free on the internet! Don’t worry about how accurate it is,
you have heaps of them to try.

Why am I being so hard on these guys surely it’s all good fun …
the truth is a lot of people love this stuff, they want to
believe they will be able to play the guitar before lunch they
buy all these ‘easy play’ type stuff and generally they get what
the pay for!

My interest is not in this type of person but rather the serious
player who genuinely loves music and wants to play the guitar
properly; it is tragic when this type of player is messed up by
all this junk.

Principles for life: Anything worthwhile doing is worthwhile
doing well!

Can you plant a tomato seed, water it and expect to eat fresh
tomatoes from that plant this afternoon? … of course not!

Can to buy a guitar, plug it in, watch a video on YouTube and
master the guitar in five minutes? … of course not!

The principle of learning to play apply in the same way as the
‘law of the farm’ works in nature … everything takes time to
grow, develop and mature.

There’s a great saying that applies here “the dedicated take care
of their time and time takes care of the un-dedicated”, I think
that sums things up beautifully for the ‘instant guitar hero’
type player, they will mess around with all types of guitars and
guitar related gadgets but will remain a stranger to music for
their entire life!

To sum things up …

1. If you don’t know what you are doing why bother doing it?

2. You can’t learn flying from a guy who has never been off the
ground … does your instructor have any ‘real world’ credibility
or is their only qualification their ability to set up a
seductive website.

3. Learning little snippets of unrelated information will only
confuse the student, in order to learn anything you need
STRUCTURE! Where fact ‘A’ is learnt and then that fact is
connected to and related to fact ‘B’ that’s how students progress
by connected learning … there is no other way forward; there
never has been nor will you ever be able to by-pass this process
that’s how human beings learn.

4. There’s a great saying that applies here “the dedicated take
care of their time and time takes care of the un-dedicated”, I
think that sums things up beautifully for the ‘instant guitar
hero’ type player, they will mess around with all types of
guitars and guitar related gadgets but will remain a stranger to
music for their entire life!

5. Learning to play a musical instrument is an exciting journey
where you learn a lot more about yourself than you ever learn
about your instrument; but everything in life has a price, if you
pay the price you will get your rewards if you are looking for
shortcuts … you miss the whole point.

Enjoy the journey of playing the guitar.

Seems pretty straight forward … just go to the music shop and
pick up a theory book and away we go; away we go alright … pick
up the wrong book and you’ll end up more confused than you ever
were before.

Musical fact of life # 1: Not all theory books are created equal.

I remember when I started my first job, it was at a music store
teaching music; I had a bit of a reputation as a player in the
local area playing in dance bands etc., and since I had already
sold quite a bit of musical equipment for the music store based
on my track record they thought I would be the obvious choice; if
the store had a potential guitar or amp customer they would leave
a message with my mum, then after school I would go down to the
store and demonstrate the gear.

Everything started out fine, I stumbled and fumbled my way
through the guitar lessons, I’m not sure who learnt the most me
or my students I know I learnt heaps everyday mostly about how
not to teach.

Anyway, very early in the piece the store manager informed me
that if I was going to continue teaching for the store I would
need to be “qualified”; I didn’t know exactly what that entailed
but it did sound scary

As it turned out what he meant was I needed to be formally
qualified … just being able to play the guitar was not good
enough if I was going to teach guitar for them.

The good news was they were going to pay for my lessons so that
was neat … there was even more good news I could go to the
theory lessons instead of having to work at the shop.

So I began my theory lessons and very soon became frustrated,
confused and perplexed … things I knew worked on the bandstand
the night before didn’t match up with the theory lesson the next
day.

The more confused I became the more determined I was about
finding the “truth”; so I started studying with other teachers to
augment my “paid” lessons from the music store … boy, did that
make matters worst; it seemed as if each theory teacher had their
own slant on things many basic concepts did not match up.

Long story short … after a lot of playing, thinking and
research I discovered ….

Musical fact of life # 2: there are different types of theory …
in fact there are three distinct types of theory:  classical,
jazz and rock/blues!

These are very broad categories they are all important and the
complete musician needs to be aware of their similarities and
differences.

They world is full of traditional classical theory books so I
won’t discuss them here. Modern theory as applied to
improvisation and the music of our time is what I’m about …
it’s great to know what happened 400 years ago but it’s unlikely
to help you secure that rock gig next Friday night,

Here’s my  top three modern theory books for guitarists

Title: Modern Method For Guitar – By William Leavitt (Berklee
Press)

Available from: Berklee.com

Overview: if you want to get in on the ground floor and study
guitar and theory as applied to the guitar fretboard, this is the
place to start!

Available in three volumes; the first sixty pages of volume one
covers the basics of reading music in the first position of the
guitar.

Part two of Berklee volume one introduces the five standard
fingering patterns for reading music over the fretboard.

Title: Jazz Studies – by Bruce Clarke (ed clinch v.i.s.e text)

Available from: BillyHydemusic.com.au

A fantastic book that takes off were the Berklee book volume one
finishes; the Jazz Studies book is ideal to use in conjunction
with Berklee Volume two.

Fantastic explanations of how modes, cycle 5 and cycle 7 concepts
work Jazz studies is a great introduction into the world of
improvisation, if you have studied traditional theory this book
will “blow the lid off” how you look at theory. Step by step
instruction, very easy to understand. Highly recommended.

Title: “See It – Hear It / Hear It – Play It” – by Dick Grove

Available from: DickGrove.com

A complete course with DVD/text instruction from the man himself
Dick Grove, you could easily pay $100,000 in college instruction
and never get this type of tuition.

Everyone learns differently the DVD’s bring the written text to
life helping to maintain the student’s motivation and enthusiasm.

Any one of these courses or combination of these three theory
text will clear the way for you to express yourself on the
guitar.

Anyway, this guy explained it was a new device for storing
music, “How many songs will it store” I asked, after checking
the gigabytes or whatever bytes they were he replied “about 8,000
songs!” All of a sudden I felt very ancient as I recalled “the
good old days” when you went into a record store and came away
with your twelve inch disc tucked under your arm.

My trip down memory lane was brought to a screeching halt when
my next guitar student arrived and signaled the beginning of my
working day. Later that day I began to review the events of that
day … have we really progressed with our technological
advancements or have we missed something along the way?

I’m all for technology in science, medicine and transport etc.,
by I’m not at all convinced we are moving forward in the learning
and long term memory recall departments!

We need to understanding ‘how’ we learn; at the end of the day we
need to understand human limitations in a world that never stops.

How To Learn Guitar In a World That Never Stops

Let’s see, where are we now; we’ve got …

* YouTube
* MySpace
* Guitar Hero
* Guitar Websites (complete with Guitar experts)
* Guitar learning software
* iPods, iPhones and tons of other “new” “i” storage and
retrieval systems some of which can store 8,000 + songs

Boy we must be smarter than previous generations look at all the
stuff we have to help us!

Unfortunately the results do not support the theory of technology
based learning being superior, in fact quite the opposite.

We’ve been that obsessed with technology we’ve overlooked the
obvious

Here’s the facts:

* We have been outpaced by our technology – humans are not built
for the world we have designed. Humans beings do not function 24
hours a day, machines can and do!

* We have converted our world into a single technologically
integrated, round-the-clock- community … news, learning, what
ever you want 27/7/365

* Machine centered technology verses human centered technology -
currently we have machine centered technology and we’re going to
have more and more problems until we start creating ‘human’
centered technology … after all we are supposed to be running
the show aren’t we?

Here’s what I’m seeing

* Guitar players how can play faster (and louder) than ever
before but most have no idea what key, scale or even what tuning
they are in? They learnt it on YouTube … must be right
…right?

How could you ever form a band with these guys … they don’t
have the foggiest idea what they are doing but they are doing it
24 hours a day! They don’t speak the language of music.

* Guitar players who can’t remember the song they were learning
last week, let alone what band was performing the song … oh,
well doesn’t matter we’ll just download another one and forget it
just as quickly and yes, I can do that 24/7 too.

Talk about the memory of a goldfish … it’s serious stuff, why
bother learning something in the first place if you can’t
remember it?

As I said I’m not against technology, I love it, just somewhere
along the way we’ve lost a commonsense approach to LEARNING.

Okay, here’s surefire five ways to overcome the 24 learning
problems.

1. Turn off the computer – seriously it will save you so much
wasted time; wasted hours that you could actually spend learning
and playing the guitar.

Try tracking how much time you spend on the computer per week ..
you’ll get a shock, I’m betting it’s over two hours per week, now
you can become a heck of a good guitar player with two extra
hours of focused practice a week … think about that!

2. Learn to read music – “if you don’t know what you are doing
there’s no point to doing it!” No matter how much you appear to
be progressing with the monkey-see-monkey-do approach at the end
of the day the best you can hope for is a musical copy-cat.

3. Learn new material in short time frames – 2 to 5 minutes
maximum, set a kitchen timer for five minutes as soon as the
timer goes off stand up and take a break. You will develop your
long term memory with this approach.

4. Play with other humans – that’s what music is all about,
people playing for and with other people. There’s something weird
about pressing colored keys down on a fake guitar plugged into a
computer pretending to be a “guitar hero”. Whatever it is … it
certainly isn’t music.

5. Make sure you learn the names of the notes on the guitar
fretboard – if you don’t know this you won’t be going anywhere.

Bottom line: You need to know how to work with your nervous
system not against it, people need rest, motivation, enthusiasm
and fun … I’m not sure what machines need, but that’s another
story.

Now that you know how to learn it’s time to head to the practice
room with a fresh approach to learning the guitar.

Music always had a hypnotic effect on me, I’d be laying in the
floor with my head on a pillow rocking my head from side to side
in time with the music, I could feel the vibrations the music
made through the floor.

Whenever I heard live music I was drawn to the sound; a group of
bagpipe players playing at a local festival had me in their spell
… the rhythm of the drums and the melodies the pipers played
intrigued me; totally unaware of my surroundings I remember
following this group through the streets and it was only when
they stopped playing did I realize my situation… I as lost!

My parents who were busy watching the procession hadn’t noticed
me drifting off with the pipers … of course they knew if they
followed the music they would eventually find me, luckily they
did … it’s pretty scary to be four years old, lost, wearing
your PJ’s with only a teddy bear under your arm to help you with
directions for home.

At the age of seven I started making my own guitars, the designs
were copied from pictures I had seen in magazines to be honest I
had know idea what the big deal was about guitars they just
seemed cool to make. A great deal of love and care was showered
on my two creations however they were frustrating to play mostly
because the strings (made out of fishing line) kept breaking.

Six years passed before the music bug finally hit me full force;
it was the day before my thirteenth birthday, we were on my way
to school and my mum asked me what I wanted for my birthday at
the exact moment she asked me we drove past a block of flats
where a guy was sitting on the front stairs playing a guitar.

It was like rediscovering an old love … ” a guitar” I blurted
out and that was it! My mum agreed on one condition, that I take
guitar lessons, I wasn’t at all keen on taking lessons but I
figured she would soon forget about the lessons and by that time
I’d have the guitar.

The very next day (a Saturday) I was busy sleeping in when I was
awoken by the familiar strains of Happy Birthday and the
rustling of a cardboard box shaped like a strange type of
triangle, my instincts told me this was probably my guitar.
Slowly and carefully I opened the box as if it contained rare and
precious jewels … indeed it contained a treasure more precious
than gold for me.

My first real guitar, it just totally blew me away … strumming
across the open strings with the guitar still in the cardboard
box I was mesmerized listening to the beautiful sound of the
guitar.

As if that wasn’t enough mum then preceded to let me in on the
next big surprise, she had organized lessons starting that day a
1.00pm, I heart sank … gee I didn’t think things would have
moved so quickly … that day I started lessons with a wonderful
inspiring teacher, I simply could not have got off to a better
start.

Looking back over forty years of guitar playing and the series
of events that have taken place in my life since I began my
musical journey I’d like to share with you some of my
discoveries.

* Discovery #1: I though there was something magical inside the
guitar, like as if there was a secret code that would unlock the
music … the secret is … there isn’t; the music is inside of
YOU all you have to do is work out a way to get the music out.

* Discovery #2: Initially I was infatuated with the guitar, later
I discovered my true love was the MUSIC … like everyone else
when I started I didn’t have any technique, consequently anyone
who could play intrigued me, as my technique developed my
interest turned to “what was being played” rather than how it was
being played.

* Discovery #3: I discovered that the REAL musicians played music
because they loved the music, they played and treated the music
with respect and that in turn brought them the respect of other
musicians and discerning listeners.

* Discovery #4: That it’s possible to play the guitar and never
play music, that a large number of people take up the instrument
because it’s popular, it’s cool, it’s a way of getting noticed
… an ego thing, at the first sign of hard work, discipline or
commitment and they drop the guitar and move on to the next
“latest” thing.

* Discovery #5: Everything thing you need is already in the song,
each song has a ’soul’ the composers of the song have given you a
gift, treat the music with care don’t trample over it with a pile
of modes and sweep picking … that’s not music and it doesn’t
have anything to do with the song; it’s just showing off!

* bonus discovery #6: I’ve noticed that guitar players fit into
three categories:

(1) Guitar owners – only need enough funds to qualify

(2) Guitar players – intoxicated with the instrument and
addicted to equipment; usually don know what they are playing but
can often play very well – they need the instrument in their
hands to communicate because the don’t understand or speak the
language of music.

(3) Musicians who play guitar as their chosen instrument – they
understand the language of music, they can read and write and can
discuss music of all styles, classical, jazz, rock without the
instrument in their hands.

I have indeed been very fortunate to be able to have the
opportunity to play music and I never take that for granted I
hope you have as much fun and enjoyment playing your guitar.

Forget endless hours searching the net, days spent drooling over
expensive new gear at the music shop, hundreds of dollars down
the drain with music lessons if you don’t develop your rhythm
playing you might as well throw away your pick!

The beat, rhythm or groove is the first aspect of music that
humans respond to, followed by melody and lastly harmony.

The best place to start is to make yourself aware of your rhythm,
we all have it, it’s just some people have developed a greater
awareness of their groove.

Try this:

(a) put on a favorite song, notice how your foot will
automatically start tapping, and the cool thing is it’s always in
time with the music … at least until you start thinking about
it!

(b) next step is to make a simple shaker, a plastic soft drink
bottle half filled with rice will do the trick just fine.

(c) now with the music playing try tapping your foot and shaking
your shaker with your right hand (if you are right handed) try
this for a couple of sessions until you feel comfortable …for
some players this may take several weeks before they can do
everything independently … don’t worry take your time and work
at your own pace.

(d) next pick up your guitar and cover the stings with your left
hand, don’t press the strings all the way down to the fretboard,
we want to create a percussive sound like a snare drum without
any notes or chords sounding; now with the music playing tap your
foot and strum the strings with your right hand using the exact
same motion you used when you had the shaker in your hand.

If you have trouble with step (d) go back to step (c) and work at
that for a bit longer until your confidence grows.

This is the quickest way to improve your rhythm playing because
you are not trying to play impossible chord shapes or difficult
scale patterns you can focus 100% on your rhythm and as you do
more of this type of practice your awareness of your internal
groove will develop. We all come to the planet with it … we
just have to work out a way to get it out!

In a way we are approaching guitar playing from a percussionist’s
angle which is the best way to develop you groove. Remember there
is nothing in a guitar it is simply a tool for musical
expression, our first goal is to be able to project ourselves
rhythmically through the guitar.

And now I’d like to invite you to get free access to my “How To Remember 1,000 Songs” eCourse. You can download the course for free at: http://www.guitarcoaching.com

You’ll learn about hit song templates, easy chords, simple scales, red hot rhythms, and successful practice strategies in text, audio and video.

From Mike Hayes – The Guitar Coaching Guy & the Express Guitar
System